It had been about half an hour.
With a look of joy at having survived, the young punk, patting her chest, walked out of the establishment.
Just as she was about to hail a taxi by the roadside, suddenly…
I darted out from a nearby alley, then quickly walked up to her, looking at her and smiling lightly, "Don't go yet, let's chat?"
Upon hearing this, the young punk glanced at me and said with a vigilant look, "We… don't seem to know each other, do we? What's there to talk about?"
Hearing her say that, I smiled faintly, then directly extended my right hand and revealed the playing card in my palm.
"Now, do you recognize me!"
As soon as she saw the playing card, a look of astonishment appeared on the young punk's face.
Immediately, she looked at me with an incredibly disbelieving gaze and asked, "You're the one who transferred the stolen goods for me?"
"I knew the cards wouldn't just disappear for no reason. So it was you secretly helping me! Does that mean you're a cheater too?"
Seeing this, you might find it strange why the stolen goods that the young punk hadn't managed to transfer out yet appeared on me.
In fact, as soon as I saw the fat man bring Wu Guoquan, I had secretly decided to help the young punk.
Not for anything else, but for the sake of jianghu (martial world) ethics.
If the fat man were a legitimate gambler, and he exposed the young punk with his own eyesight and experience, then called Wu Guoquan to deal with her, I would certainly have nothing to say and would stay out of it.
But this scoundrel was a gambler who would stop at nothing. He had his own messes to clean up, and now he was jumping out to provoke others, which was truly going too far.
Therefore, while Wu Guoquan was asking me for a lighter to light his cigarette, I deliberately put on a show of almost falling. The moment I braced myself on the gambling table with my left hand, I secretly removed the stolen card.
Earlier, the young punk, to cover herself, had deliberately used the beginner's two-halves card shuffling method. I had already memorized what the extra card was and where it was in the deck.
Of course, the reason the young punk was able to leave the casino safely in the end, besides me pocketing the stolen card from the gambling table, was also her own timely and crucial self-rescue.
After the fat man made his move, the young punk's seemingly ineffective panicked resistance was actually a chance for her to discreetly get rid of the stolen goods on her person.
However, besides jianghu ethics, I had another reason for helping the young punk.
That was, Xianyu's intelligence was inaccurate this time.
Or rather, the information he gathered from his former clients about this casino… was extremely, incredibly, and utterly inaccurate.
If you gamble in this place, there is absolutely no possibility of taking any winnings with you!
There are two specific reasons.
First, the roulette wheel drawing.
Gambling games like this, which are already on the verge of being phased out in the market, require a large number of stooges to hype up the atmosphere.
This can be seen as an indication that there are many stooges in the casino.
Although many places outside hire stooges, generally, non-high-stakes games will not easily reveal their stooges.
After all, each additional use increases the risk of exposure.
I remember Uncle Tuo once said that once you find a large number of stooges disguised as gamblers in a casino, don't worry about anything else… just run!
At first, when I saw the roulette wheel drawing, I didn't take Uncle Tuo's words to heart.
But when I saw Wu Guoquan appear, especially when he seemed to be quite attentive to the fat man's words, I knew I was wrong.
The fat man and the skinny bamboo pole were gamblers, a small group working together to make money, and none of that was wrong.
But there was one more point that I had overlooked.
What I thought was unimportant before, I later realized was actually very important!
The gambling stakes!
Do you remember what I mentioned? The combined gambling stakes of these two gamblers were not only more than the young punk's, but also significantly more than mine!
When did gamblers who were uneducated and took crooked paths become better off than us cheaters?
Moreover, these two scoundrels were sitting openly at the scattered tables in the establishment, waiting for people to join them and form a game.
This second point, and the most important one, was confirmed by me after I saw the interaction between the fat man and Wu Guoquan.
That is: the fat man and the skinny bamboo pole were also stooges hired by this establishment!
If I'm not mistaken, their job was to initiate gambling games and specifically cooperate with the casino to catch cheaters.
If a cheater is caught cheating, they have to pay a hefty price to avoid having their fingers chopped off.
This establishment, which appears to be loosely managed, is actually outwardly relaxed but inwardly tight, very cunning and shrewd!
They use gamblers as bait to cast a wide net outside to catch cheaters.
I don't know how long the fat man and others have cooperated with this establishment, whether there are other gamblers colluding at other scattered tables, or how many methods of detecting cheaters' moves the casino's inside informants have taught these gamblers.
If Yu Shuang's hotel-style casino was about making money openly, then the owner of this establishment was doing things crookedly and secretly.
In short, this place is very sinister!
If, earlier, I hadn't adhered to the principle of hiding one's strength and waiting for opportunities…
In the end, as long as I had won money, even if the fat man and the others couldn't catch me cheating, they might have called Wu Guoquan to search me and forcibly frame me with the evidence.
Xianyu and I have been working together for some time. By rights, even if this place was investigated based on his former gambler clients, he shouldn't have reported it to me directly without doing even basic verification.
If the young punk hadn't jumped out first and fallen into the fat man's trap, I can be sure that the last person to be kept at the scattered table… would have been me!
I waited for the young punk to come out so I could gather some information about this casino from her.
For a novice cheater like her, since she dared to come here to make money, she must have done some homework beforehand.
It's not important if she doesn't know the true identities of the fat man and the others. It's normal not to figure out the ins and outs of this place.
After all, not every cheater who has been in the business for a short time gets to meet a master like Uncle Tuo.
I just needed the young punk to provide me with some accurate information about this establishment, so I could then summarize and analyze the reasons for Xianyu's low-level mistake.
I hope the final outcome isn't what I'm expecting.
If it is, then this stab in the back… hurts a little too much!